Congregational Development

Global Ministries has been entrusted by the Book of Discipline with the task of developing new churches and revitalizing existing churches. We do that by:

Working in collaboration with the General Board of Discipleship to envision, design, and implement the School of Congregational Development, which is an annual event that offers training for new congregations and established churches that seek to create new places for new people.
Through this event, the planning committee seeks to offer learning opportunities that are relevant to churches of all sizes, rural, suburban, and urban, as well as churches that reach across different ethnic/cultural groups. The committee has also been intentional to include components that resource the church in the area of multicultural church development.

Global Ministries also sponsors a one-day satellite event, which offers a five–hour ministry track that is webcasted to various sites through the country. This ministry track is facilitated by speakers in the school and participants around the country are able to interact with the speakers as well as to dialogue within their groups led by a trained facilitator. For information go to School of Congregational Development.

Resourcing for multicultural church development. The church functions within a dramatic population shift in the United States. According to the July 2012 US Census, 37 percent (116 million) of the total US population was an ethnic minority. For The United Methodist Church to grow and thrive, the church must learn how to present the gospel of Jesus Christ effectively to people from diverse ethnic backgrounds and perspectives.

To address this challenge, Global Ministries is partnering with churches to provide relevant training that addresses issues such as: how to develop a multi-class multicultural church, how to design a multicultural worship service, how to develop a church that welcomes people from different social classes and different walks of life, how to move from a service-providing church to a church built on relationships with the community, how to reach later generations of immigrant descendents, and others.

Providing Racial Ethnic Local Church (RELC) grants. Global Ministries gives a limited number of grants to churches that serve racial/ethnic populations.

Partnering and resourcing various national and international networking groups, community developers, and others which work with churches that minister in various settings. See Networks and Constituencies for more information.

Photo from the School of Congregational Development, Evanston, Illinois July-August 2009.

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Training Opportunity

One Body: Multicultural Journeys in Worship

This unique training is designed to assist and accompany local congregations in their journey towards God’s dream of the beloved community. In this training clay/clergy teams learn and practice how to plan and lead worship in ways that welcomes, speaks and nourishes both those who are already “inside” and those who are still “outside” of the church community. Training involves the areas of preaching and sacraments, music and visual arts. Post-training coaching is available for select congregations.

Co-sponsoring funding is available for Conference, Districts or Church Clusters. For more information, contact Rev. Debra Tyree at dtyree@umcmission.org